"Shattuck and I were particularly concerned with the activities of Zeljko Raznatovic, popularly known as Arkan, one of the most notorious men in the Balkans. Even in former Yugoslavia, Arkan was something special, a freelance murderer who roamed across Bosnia and eastern Slavonia with his black-shirted men, terrorizing Muslims and Croats. To the rest of the world Arkan was a racist fanatic run amok, but many Serbs regarded him as a hero. His private army, the Tigers, had committed some of the war's worst atrocities, carrying out summary executions and virtually inventing ethnic cleansing in 1991-92. Western intelligence was convinced he worked, or had worked, for the Yugoslav secret police. (...) Although the [Hague ICTY] Tribunal had handed down over fifty indictments by October 1995, these did not include Arkan. I pressed Goldstone Richard Goldstone, ICTY president] on this matter several times, but because a strict wall separated the tribunal's internal deliberations from the American government, he would not tell us why Arkan had not been indicted. This was especially puzzling given Goldstone's stature and his public criticisms of the international peacekeeping forces for not arresting any of the indicted war criminals. Whenever I mentioned Arkan's name to Milosevic, he seemed annoyed. He did not mind criticism of Karadzic or Mladic, but Arkan - who lived in Belgrade, ran a popular restaurant, and was married to a rock star - was a different matter. Milosevic dismissed Arkan as a "peanut issue", and claimed he had no influence over him. But Arkan's activities in western Bosnia decreased immediately after my complaints. This was hardly a victory, however, because Arkan at large remained a dangerous force and a powerful signal that one could still get away with murder - literally - in Bosnia."
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Historians from the United StatesPolitical scientists from the United StatesDiplomats of the United StatesUnited States Ambassadors to Prussia and GermanyMembers of the Democratic Party (United States)
Original Language: English
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pp. 189-190
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Holbrooke
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Richard Holbrooke
1941 – 2010
US-amerikanischer Diplomat
23 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Richard Holbrooke →
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